Just a quick update

Life has been a whirlwind the past couple of months.  We have settled into our new place and it is awesome!  We are fully unpacked (that took a while).  We've had family visitors (my mom, Mike's parents).  We have purchased some new furniture (that was fun).  And we have started to organize things a bit.  Our to do list has a lot of painting on it, but we're happy just to be where we are!

 

How to build a bed for staging your house to sell

In my opinion, staging your home to sell should be all about using what you have.  That being said,  you still need to be smart about it. If nothing you have could be considered neutral or appeal to the masses, you may need to invest in a few essentials.  (Or hire me to come stage your house for you.)To stage our master bedroom, we used our headboard (queen size) and some extra bedding we had on hand.  Since we needed our box spring and mattress to sleep on at the new house, my initial plan was to use a queen size air mattress we had.  It didn't work!  It's a tall bed height air mattress and once filled with air was no longer bed shaped at all.  It bowed out at the sides and made the bedding look terrible!  I knew there had to be a better way.  Since we had just moved the week prior, I was surrounded by empty moving boxes and became determined to make a bed out of them.  I enlisted my mom to help and this is what we came up with.

What you need:
9 large boxes, I used these from the Home Depot
A roll of packing tape
An old/cheap bed skirt you don't mind cutting, or this is another good option (you could also use fabric you have on hand)
Neutral Bedding & Pillows

The boxes weren't exactly the right size so we opened the flaps, taped them down and they were perfect!

I just happened to have this old bed skirt that had shrunk in the wash and didn't fit correctly anymore, so I cut it and taped it to the boxes.

I did put a queen size blanket on top of the boxes prior to adding the fitted sheet, just to give it a little loft and less of a "boxy" look.

Just tape your flat sheet in place and there you have it; instant bed!
Don't forget to add a tent card for showings "Please do not sit on bed.  For display only"

 

Staging and Selling

With a brand new (larger) mortgage to pay, it became very important to get our old house listed and sold as fast as possible.  We decided to move out of our old house first before attempting to sell.  Trying to keep a place clean and show ready while working full-time, living with a three year old, a six month old and a dog was not going to happen.  I'm brave, but not crazy.  In hindsight, this was a very wise decision!

Having worked in the real estate industry in CA (2006), I knew how important staging would be for a quick sale.  Rather than pay somebody ($2000) to do it for us, we left some of our own furniture at the old place specifically for this purpose.  This is what the realtor's photographer/staging coordinator had to say: "The house looks super cute - nice work! Rachel, you should go into home staging."  Thank you.  I think so too!

The place did turn out really cute (if I do say so myself) and the photos for the multiple listing service looked great.  There was nothing left for us to do except sit back and wait for the offers to pour in.  And believe it or not, they did!  We had multiple offers (even an all cash offer) within the first 24 hours! The house sold in two days and for over our asking price!

View of our little yellow love shack from the street

Living Room (we installed those floors ourselves in 2012; I miss them)

Living Room

Office (this used to be our son's bedroom)

CLEAN kitchen with spotless appliances, fresh grout and minimal accessorizing

Dining Room (I removed all curtains/valances, very important for staging as they do NOT photograph well)

Kitchen & Dining (CLEAN is key! Minimal accessorizing. I didn't even put that plant on the table, the photographer did, I would have gone bare.)

Main bathroom; minimal accessorizing, brand new towels and fresh grout. Again, CLEAN is key!

Master Bedroom: That is not a real bed. I built it from cardboard boxes. I will show you how later.

Master Bathroom: Clean grout, fresh flowers and brand new towels

Secondary bedrooms are ok to leave vacant. This room used to be our nursery.

Photo credit to Krista Deutsch-Frey for Templeton Real Estate Group

Making a move

We did it.  We rented a U-Haul, called up some friends and said goodbye to our little yellow love shack.  Our new place closed on January 10th and we moved on the 11th.  We are still trying to get organized and settled, but we are loving our new home!  Next up: staging and selling a house.  Stay tuned!

Unintentionally Buying a House

We are currently in the process of closing on a new home, YAY!  The funny part is that we were never really seriously house hunting.  We knew we wanted out of our current house, but thought we would have to wait until summer/fall of 2014.  Then, Mike received a bit of a promotion at work and we thought... well... maybe we can do it now.  So, we started hitting open houses in our preferred neighborhoods on the weekends, just to see what was out there in our price range.  Then, it happened.  One Sunday evening on the way home from an open house, we took a right hand turn into a neighborhood we don't usually drive by.  And there it was!  The second house on the left with a "for sale" sign in the front yard.  It was the most amazing place I had seen since we started (not) looking.  "Now that's a dream home", I uttered as Mike stopped the car for me to pull the flyer.  "Surely this place is out of our budget."  And it was.  By about $50K.  So, I started following the place on Zillow.com.  A few weeks later they dropped the price $25K.  We mentioned this to my parents via facetime one morning and after they saw the listing photos on Zillow, they practically begged us to just go look at the house.  We weren't going to, since we didn't have a realtor; after all, we were only stopping by open houses here and there and this place didn't have an open house scheduled.  But with mom's encouragement, I called the listing agent and made an appointment to see the home.  And fell in love.  So, here we are just a few short weeks later and the place is ours!  Well, almost ours; set to close at the end of the month.  What a whirlwind!  We can't wait to get into our new place!

Back in the saddle again

Going back to work after my 3 month maternity leave was not an easy task. It was an emotional roller coaster. The Friday before I went back, I spent most of the morning on the sofa cradling my baby and crying into my coffee.  I was not ready to be separated from her (and don't even get me started on the whole breast feeding issue that complicates the matter even more).  I had a hard time fitting into my old work wardrobe, and still do. Stupid things made me cry. (Like the woman in the hallway the other day telling her attorney she doesn't want to go to court because she just doesn't feel good.)  There are days when all I want to do is snuggle my kids and be a stay at home mom. And then there are days that my 2 year old tests me so much that I can't wait to get back to the office.

My first day back was ok. I managed to leave the baby at daycare without bursting into tears (although writing about it now is making me tear up). Then on my way from daycare to the office I spilled coffee all over my pretty new first-day-back green silk blouse. Whomp, whomp, whomp. Morning fail. Oh well, I sucked it up and rocked my coffee stained blouse all day.  

"Welcome back ham!"

On Leave

I've been on maternity leave for 7 weeks now. It's been so nice to live at a slower pace and not have to worry about work. 

I'm so in love with this new baby; I could just eat her up!

Evelyn June Burkholder was born on June 28, 2013, at 7:06 PM. 8lbs, 21.25inches.